Everyone thought that things were getting back to normal. They had no idea that normal didn’t exist for me any more. Normal had been smashed on the rocks beneath the bridge.

Her brain is like a filing cabinet – everything neatly stored in categories. My brain is more like soup – everything all blended and mushed together.

This is the real way a friendship ends. Not with some huge screaming row, but with a gradual withdrawal. You’d think it would be less painful this way.

To be perfectly honest, it scared me a little. You get so used to seeing the same thing in the mirror every day you stop thinking about what you look like.

It’s not that I mind being alone, not really. I can distract myself with silly fantasies and daydreams for hours, but in the end it always comes back to me. That’s what I’m left with: just me. And that’s what scares me more than anything. Me.

I called no one, and no one called me. I was suffocating with loneliness. The pain was almost physical. I felt like tearing myself apart. I wanted to escape from my own skin.

It's too late.I chose life too late.

I can just close my eyes and let myself fall into oblivion. Maybe I'll hit the exact same rocks and my blood will mingle with his and maybe there's some kind of life after death and he's waiting for me there with his hand outstretched just like mine.But...I don't want to die.I try to twist my body backwards and pain shoots up my neck.It's too late.I chose life too late.

I know people think suicide is selfish, and maybe sometimes it really is. But what happened to Kai was beyond what anyone should have to cope with. I didn’t blame him, not really. It just broke my heart that I wasn’t enough to keep him here.

Kind of just existed from day to day, on weird plateau of feeling nothingness.

I wanted to grab his stupid ears and smash his stupid head against the door until his stupid brains leaked out. Instead, I did nothing.

That was progress, right there. Except no one would ever know how hard I was working to keep my temper under control, because the whole point of keeping your temper under control is not doing things like throwing a milk carton in someone's face even though they clearly deserve it.

It’s amazing, the lies you can tell yourself. Even more amazing, the lies you can believe when you’re desperate enough.

Has this version of me been lurking there all along, somewhere deep below the surface, biding its time, waiting for its chance to make an appearance?

The butterflies in my stomach turn into vampire bats as we pull up to the school.

I didn't just wake up one morning and think, "I'm a boy!" It sort of crept up on me and tapped me on the shoulder a few times before I started to pay attention I began to think that the word "girl" didn't quite fit me. It was like a shoe that was too small -- it pinched me.

Everyone’s got secrets, Jem. It’s what makes people interesting.

It's entirely possible to get to know someone without actually seeing them in person. In fact, it's better like that because none of the superficial stuff gets in the way. You really get to know a person. And it's easier to express yourself when you're writing things down. At least it is for me. I like to order my thoughts, and delete them if they don't make any sense. You can't do that in real life.